


runaways

by starfleetbanana



Series: tumblr prompts [9]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Kittens, sorta?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 16:06:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9392690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfleetbanana/pseuds/starfleetbanana
Summary: tumblr prompt: Andrew and Neil adopt a cat while still in Palmetto and of course the other foxes notice





	

Everybody knows Neil’s secretive, but this time’s getting a little bit out of hand and it’s worrying the foxes. He does no longer share a room with Matt and Matt knows Andrew probably notices way more things than he does, but he’s acting like nothing’s going on and with him you just _never know._

Everyone’d thought Neil’d finally stopped hiding things from then, but it’s pretty obvious he’s trying to keep something from them when the upperclassmen find him on their way to lunch and Neil holds onto his bag and power walks somewhere else as soon as they say hello.

There’s a lot of evidence, according to Matt, who’s been investigating a little bit. Neil’s buying something at odd hours during the day, usually during the morning. So he considers maybe Neil’s getting into an ugly drug habit. No, Andrew wouldn’t approve of that and Kevin would fight the entire world before seeing another striker’s talent go to waste because of something as stupid as drugs. Plus Neil doesn’t need drugs for recreational purposes, right?

So maybe he’s sick and that’s why he leaves practice so early and hides whatever he’s carrying and oh, no, what if Neil’s fucking dying and he hasn’t told anyone?! Somebody has to know, and that someone has to be Andrew because Neil power walking to their dorm room has to mean that’s a safe space. Yes, it makes sense.

He tries for a whole day to imagine how a nice conversation with Andrew would go. They aren’t friends by any means, but there’s a comfortable silence established between the two of them and Andrew doesn’t pretend to ignore him when he talks. He nods most of the time, hums at best. It’ll have to do.

“Dude, is Neil fine? He’s acting kinda sketchy” He asks in the locker room. Neil isn’t there, he’s already left and it’s sort of surprising there’s something more important than discussing practice with Kevin, Dan and Wymack afterwards.

“Why don’t you ask him?” Andrew says, looking almost annoyed at the implication Neil’s behaviour’s any different.

“Because he’s not around. He’s never around, always busy with something and acting weird” Matt answers sounding a little bit desperate to get something from Andrew. Andrew shrugs, which has to mean they’ve talked about it and Neil doesn’t want any of them to know.

“They’re gonna figure it out eventually” Andrew says, back in his room once he’s warm and relaxed into his bed, “Kevin’s gonna kick you out” Andrew continues and in the silence he can hear the little monster purring in Neil’s arms.

He’d found him during one of his morning runs and the tiny black kitten had followed him thinking Neil was playing with him. Neil wasn’t really fond of cats, but this tiny little thing looked adorable and hadn’t stopped until Neil had and he couldn’t just leave him alone after the tiny black kitten had licked his hand. See, Neil wasn’t really used to feeling a pang in his chest when stray cats approached him.

He’d picked him up, wrapped him up in his hoodie and walked back to fox tower making sure nobody saw him. It was early in the morning so no one would see anything. He waited until Andrew was up to show him the kitten and Andrew’d just said “Keep him away from me and my things”

Having a kitten meant he had to run back and forth to make sure the kitten was fine. It was only a baby but he knew if anyone else knew there’d be a talk about the emotions of neglected children and stray animals he didn’t want to have. The kitten was cute and tiny and Neil felt like it was his duty to protect him. So basically his backpack smelt of cat food all day long, and he was covered in cat hair most of the time. He was lucky it was black hair, at least.

The foxes were worried, apparently, because they kept giving him worried and weird looks. He had to tell them at some point, but he’d wait a little bit longer, until the kitten wasn’t a needy and noisy ball of fluff locked in his room.

“He needs me, he found me” Neil says sounding tired. The kitten’s asleep on his chest, and he looks adorable. He doesn’t have a name yet and he’s bad at names -considering all the names he’s had in the past- so he’ll have to ask Allison and Nicky for their input at some point.

“Runaways” Andrew says in a mocking voice and Neil sighs in response.

Andrew can pretend all he likes he hates the cat and yes, cat hair everywhere and waking up to loud meowing are a little bit of a con, but he can’t hide the way his eyes light up just a little when the kitten bites his fingers tentatively when Andrew drums his fingers on the nightstand. He doesn’t let him sleep anywhere near him, but the kitten always manages to jump from Neil’s bunk to Andrew’s when they’re not there.

Andrew says it’s because the cat thinks he owns Andrew’s bunk too, Neil’s pretty sure it’s because he misses him when he’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> loved this prompt so much and i could've done much more with it but yeah. As always, any sort of feedback is REALLY appreciated. find me @ minycrdjcsten on tumblr.


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